I like the fact that Obama has Challengers in his admin, hopefully he keeps Gates The latest U.S. nuclear showdown doesn't involve a foreign enemy. Instead it pits President Barack Obama against his Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and concerns the question of whether America needs a new generation of nuclear warheads. While serving under former President George W. Bush, Gates had repeatedly called for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program to be put into operation, because the nation's current nukes — mostly produced in the 1970s and '80s — are growing so old that their destructive power may be in question. Related "The Reliable Replacement Warhead is not about new capabilities but about safety, reliability and security," Gates said in a speech in the week before last November's election. In an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, released in early December after Gates was tapped by Obama to stay on at the Pentagon, Gates repeated that refrain. "Even though the days of hair-trigger superpower confrontation are over, as long as other nations possess the bomb and the means to deliver it, the United States must maintain a credible strategic deterrent," he wrote. "Congress needs to do its part by funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead program — for safety, for security and for a more reliable deterrent." RRW basically trades explosive force for greater assurance that new warheads would work predictably in the absence of tests, which the U.S. has refrained from conducting for nearly two decades to help advance nonproliferation goals. (See a graphic of the global nuclear arms balance.) But Obama doesn't buy that logic. Shortly after taking the oath of office on Tuesday, he turned what had been a campaign promise into an official presidential commitment: the new Administration "will stop the development of new nuclear weapons," the White House declared flatly on its website, with no equivocation, asterisks or caveats. Obama and Gates are "at loggerheads on this," says Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who has specialized in nuclear issues. A senior Pentagon official says talk of a resolution is "premature" because he doesn't believe Gates and Obama have discussed the matter. The plutonium "pit" of a nuclear weapon — the heart of its extraordinary power — suffers radioactive decay, losing power and building up impurities, over time. There is concern that aging pits may fail to detonate properly, or perhaps at all. O'Hanlon and other nuclear thinkers have suggested retooling existing weapons to improve reliability as an option. But the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which develops America's nuclear weapons, has said it cannot meet the goals set for RRW by modifying existing weapons. Obama's position has backing in Congress, which has repeatedly refused to fund the program. (See who's who in Obama's White House.) Obama would have a difficult time reversing course on what is now a stated policy of his Administration instead of simply a campaign promise. And any move to produce new nuclear weapons will be read by other nations as a U.S. push for nuclear supremacy, even as Washington urges the rest of the world — Tehran, are you listening? — to do without the weapons. Russia would very likely respond by upgrading its own arsenal. But Gates argues that building a new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads would give the U.S. the confidence to shrink its overall nuclear arsenal. After all, if you have only a 50% level of confidence that a nuclear weapon is going to perform as advertised, you'll need twice as many. The U.S., under a self-imposed moratorium, has not conducted nuclear tests to assure the reliability and potency of its weapons since 1992. But it does spend more than $5 billion a year conducting analyses and computerized tests to monitor the health of the weapons. (RRW is estimated to cost at least $100 billion.) Military officers have also expressed concern over relying on the aging atomic arsenal. (Skeptics note that U.S. policy tends to embrace the notion that all nuclear weapons possessed by adversaries will work, while those possessed by the U.S. won't.) "The path of inaction is a path leading toward nuclear disarmament," Air Force General Kevin Chilton, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, warned last month. "The time to act is now." Nuclear weapons have tended to prevent or contain conflicts between those nations that possess them. Today's nuclear nightmare tends to focus less on a doomsday exchange with similarly armed rival states than on the nightmare of "loose nukes" falling into the hands of terrorists unaligned with any state and therefore beyond the reach of deterrence. A new batch of nuclear weapons, unfortunately, isn't going to change that.
I'm sure some of the rationale of the necessity of these new weapons is just cover for guys who want to make new higher tech nuclear weapons with all the latest technology. For instance, I found the following story entitled, "U.S. General Eyes Nuclear Weapon Improvements" which was published on December 19, 2008 in which an Air Force general talks about all the new entirely superfluous toys like "stealth nukes" that he wants, in presumably discussed with a very Buck Turgidson-like excitement. On the subject generally, there is a book I may get if I'm feeling adventurous called The Minimum Means of Reprisal all aobut the Chinese Nuclear philosophy which basically states that "...China's nuclear deployment and arms control patterns stem from the belief that deterrence is relatively unaffected by changes in the size, configuration, and readiness of nuclear forces." As I haven't read it yet I don't know for sure, but one wonders if this apparently effective and economical Chinese philosophy might be applied in the USA, allowing us to shrink the arsenal without worrying about a new generation of super nukes. The author of the book also has a very good blog on nuclear weapons issues that I try to soldier through (very technically detailed and occasionally tedious) at http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/. EDIT: BTW, hopefuly this isn't too off topic, but Robert Gates gave us another 'interesting' headline today: [rquoter] Gates accuses Iran of subversion in Latin America WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused Iran Tuesday of engaging in "subversive activity" in Latin America, saying it concerned him more than Russia's recent naval forays in the region. "I'm concerned about the level of frankly subversive activity that the Iranians are carrying on in a number of places in Latin America particularly South America and Central America," Gates told lawmakers. "They're opening a lot of offices and a lot of fronts behind which they interfere in what is going on in some of these countries," he said. Gates gave no specifics in leveling the accusation against Iran at a Senate hearing in response to a question about Russia's recent naval exercises in the Caribbean with Venezuela. The secretary said nonchalance was the best response to the Russian ship visits. "In fact if it hadn't been for the events in Georgia in August, I probably would've tried to persuade the president to invite the Russian ships pay a port call in Miami because I think they would've had a lot better time than they did in Caracas," he said. "But basically I think at 40-dollar (per barrel) oil, the Russian navy does not bother me very much," Gates added. "It's important for us to keep perspective about their capabilities," he said. "When they complained about our escorting their Blackjack bombers to Venezuela, I wanted to say that we just wanted to be along there for search and rescue if they needed it." [/rquoter]
I agree with Gates. Russia scares me. What if they decide to go crazy and send some missles at us. I don't trust Putin. I think he is still running the government and the current leader is just a puppet.
What? If they get crazy and send some missiles at us, we're all just as dead with 20 year-old nukes as with new ones. The half life of plutonium is in the hundreds of years, and we have more than enough to completely engulf the world in flame and ash several times over. The last thing we need to spending more money on now is nuclear weapons, from an economic and policy standpoint (won't look to good in the face of our general disarmament policies around the world).
The people who know the most about these weapons fear that they may not detonate at all. What makes you so sure?
B-52's seem to be doing great with proper maintenance and updating with modern electronics -- i'm sure 20-30 year old nukes will be just fine with the same attention.
Obama needs to fire Gates after a decent interval. Gates and the generals are pushing for the military industrial pork, where they will get paid after they leave government.
The B-52's latest release is the number 4 record in all of 2008 -- rock that lobster. SamFisher just got long played
It's about whether nuclear primacy can continue to play an effective role in American foreign policy.
I thought iran was supposed to hate americans? And here they are just flirting with evo morales and the americas. The U.S has been engaged In "subversive activity" in latin for the longest time.
Nuclear weapons are a deterrent. If the government is admitting that they don't know if they missles will detonate, then Russia doesn't have to worry about these missles detonating.
Which is why you can be damn sure these missiles are not deteriorating. I have a hard time believing anyone would be dumb enough to compromise national security by admitting our nukes don't work. More than likely, its just someone else trying to get into the stimulus pie and upgrade their toys. We spend more on defense than the next 25 countries combined (I think), if anyone is maintaining a nuclear arsenal, its us.
FWIW the half life of Pu 239 is 24,110 years. I'm sure that isn't the only figure relevant to the discussion, but you still are talking like the difference between something like a baseline .05% failure rate increasing to .25% because of age. It isn't like all the weapons are going to stop functioning, and even in 100% condition, there is an expected failure rate.
This is sort of like Dirty Harry saying "Punk. Do you feel lucky.." Is any sane Russian leader going to gamble that the US nuclear arsenal doesn't work to try to launch a nuclear attack? I have a hard time buying that any other country in their right mind would even contemplate such a thing. For that matter consdering the economic woes and demoralized state of Russia's military for much of the last 20 years its likely that their nuclear arsenal isn't that reliable either.
That makes sense. I had read awhile back that biggest problems with aging nuclear weapons isn't just the plutonium decay but that the tritium starts to evaporate. So you end up with just an A-bomb and not an H-bomb. I'm wondering why they need to create a new generation of weapons and can't just maintain steady maintenance including replacing tritium and plutonium triggers. A lot of this sounds like an attempt to pump up defense budgets more.
Actually it is expected that Gates will return to academia after he leaves office. He has mentioned going back to A&M, and A&M has yet to hire a permanent replacement for him.
